Life and Death in Palestine: Information gift for a Premier — Day 4

Israelis and their supporters are in the process of learning the price of following the dictates of “Netanyahu’s mind.”

No 1648 Posted by fw, April 22, 2016

As a reminder, scholar and educator Herbert Thelen inspired this protest campaign: “To act ignorantly when knowledge is available, to deny realities that patently exist and make a genuine difference, is the worst crime of civilized man.”

Israel’s crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are realities that patently exist. Why, then, when this knowledge is readily available, would Premier Wynne decide to lead a trade mission to Israel? I suggest this was not a responsibly informed decision.

Today, Day 4 of my letter-a-day campaign to share with the Premier information gifts from alternative online news sources not readily found in North America’s mainstream news media, I sent the following message.

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Friday, April 22, 2016

Dear Premier Wynne,

Below is my information gift for you on this, Day 4, of my project to fill in some possible gaps in your knowledge base with respect to life and death in the Israeli Occupied Territories.

Reposted below is a short excerpt from the concluding sections of retired US history professor Lawrence Davidson’s latest blog post, Netanyahu’s Mind: An Analysis.

Re Davidson’s credentials, his academic research focused on the history of American foreign relations with the Middle East. He taught courses in Middle East history, the history of science and modern European intellectual history.

The following repost is a slightly modified excerpt. To read the complete article, click on the following linked title.

Israel’s absorption of the territories can be judged as the very opposite of realism – it is a utopian (actually dystopian) scheme that is in the process of doing untold damage to both Jews and Palestinians while isolating Israel from the rest of the world.

If we are to believe the reports coming out of Israel, the Jewish majority there is undergoing an unchecked withdrawal into itself. The “us against the world” attitude that has always characterized some of world Jewry has now taken command in Israel. And, except for a small portion of the population that has managed to break free of this warped worldview (and as a consequence is being labeled as traitors), the mass of Israeli Jews is following their Pied Piper leaders into dangerous isolation.

This state of detachment has led to a series of policy decisions that are anything but realistic. The continuing expansion of illegal settlements and destruction of Palestinian houses, the resulting ethnic cleansing, the utter barbarism of Israeli policy toward Gaza, and the labeling as terrorist behavior all reactions against these policies, mark an official, and internally popular, worldview that is increasing detached from reality.

For a nation (and also individuals) in this state of mind positive change can only come from the outside. The resulting pressure is never pleasant and sometimes may become severe. However, in cases where the behavior of the offending state is criminal and often barbaric, change, be it easy or hard, must ultimately come. And, in fact, the Israelis and their supporters are in the process of learning the price of following the dictates of “Netanyahu’s mind.”

END OF EXCERPT — To continue reading, click on the above linked title…